PESHAWAR: Health department will empanel more hospitals in tribal districts for free treatment of people under Sehat Card Plus (SCP) programme to cater to the needs of the increasing number of patients.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has included tribal districts in its SCP initiative after the federal government stopped funding for the free treatment of 16 million families under Sehat Sahulat Programme.

In July, the number of hospitalised patients was low owing to lack of awareness among people regarding the programme but in August 22,000 patients were admitted to hospitals from the erstwhile tribal areas for cashless treatment.

The increase in the number of hospitalised patients under the free treatment programme prompted the authorities concerned to assess and empanel the hospitals meeting the prescribed criteria.

Number of patients availing services under SCP programme on the rise

In August, 111,000 patients, the highest number since launch of the programme, were admitted to hospitals in the province for free treatment. The scheme now covers all 9.2 million residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 1.6 million people of tribal districts. In July, 68,000 people got free treatment services under the programme.

Last month, the expenditures on free treatment of people were Rs2.5 billion, the largest amount spent in one month so far, according to officials.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has allocated Rs25 billion for the ongoing financial year for the programme under which more than 1.3 billion people have received free health services since its launch in 2016.

There are total 1,100 empanelled hospitals across the country where residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are entitled to receive free diagnostic and treatment services. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 192 empanelled hospitals besides 13 in its tribal districts.

Dr Mohammad Riaz Tanoli, the chief executive officer of the programme, told Dawn that they were starting a process to select good hospitals in tribal districts so that people could avail free health services in their native areas.

“We will also inspect the hospitals being run under the public-private partnership programme in tribal districts. Our teams would visit the hospitals next month to select the best ones for the programme,” he said. He added that a total of 16 hospitals were contracted by government in tribal districts under public-private programme that were offering good services to people.

“However, there is a proper mechanism for selection of new hospitals. Those hospitals would be empanelled in tribal districts that get 40 per cent score in the assessment unlike Peshawar, Abbottabad and Swat etc where health facilities are enlisted with score of 70 per cent,” said Dr Riaz.

The health department has also softened the criteria for Torghar, Kohistan, Lakki Marwat and Tanks etc where selection is made on 40 per cent score.

He said that so far Rs36 billion had been spent on free treatment of people since 2016. However, after the extension of the programme to the entire province, the number of patients continues to increase due to which the empanelment of hospitals has become a regular process.

Dr Riaz said that at the start of the programme, card utilisation was only two per cent due to limited coverage but following the universal health coverage in November 2020, the number of families using the card rose to 10 per cent.

In October 2020, when the target coverage of the scheme was above 64 per cent, the utilisation of card was only three per cent, he said. The programme covered three per cent population in first phase, started in 2016 in four districts, that was extended to 51 per cent population in second phase in 2017 and to 64 per cent in third phase in 2018.

Each family is entitled spend to Rs1 million per year under the programme. However, for liver and renal transplants, the amount is Rs5 million and Rs1.4 million, respectively.

“We have held seminars at the district level throughout the province to provide guidance to the hospitals to upgrade their facilities and get empanelled so that people could get services in their home districts. The same approach is applied in tribal districts,” said Dr Riaz.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2022